The Tretyakov Gallery holds a unique collection of the artist’s graphics: more than 700 independent sheets and about 40 albums. “Biblical sketches” is a special part of Alexander Ivanov’s legacy. The exhibition “Miracles and Sermons of Christ” continues to show this large—scale cycle, on which Ivanov worked for the last decade of his life — from the late 1840s to the beginning of 1858.
The main theme of the exhibition is Christ during his public ministry. He appears before a large crowd during sermons, talks with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and performs miracles. Among the works presented are the famous sketch “Walking on the Waters (Christ saves Peter who began to drown)”, as well as the compositions “Transfiguration” and “Entrance to Jerusalem”. In these watercolors, Ivanov addresses the events of the gospel story with exceptional freedom, offering his own interpretation of the most important subjects.
A special place is occupied by images of Christ surrounded by people. The action takes place in temples with majestic colonnades and staircases, porticos, streets and squares. The crowd becomes not only a witness, but also a participant in what is happening. The expressiveness of the compositions is achieved by bold spatial solutions, lighting effects and subtle modeling of shapes.
The gospel scenes were to occupy the central fields of the future ensemble of wall paintings. Ivanov intended to place numerous episodes from the Old Testament around them as semantic parallels to New Testament events. Thus, he compared the composition “The miraculous saturation of the people with five loaves and two fishes” with the story of the manna from heaven, which God fed to the Jewish people.
The idea of the “Biblical Sketches” was connected with the idea of creating a special building — the so-called “Temple of Art” or “Temple of Philosophy”. However, neither the architecture nor the interior of the future building have been developed. The only evidence of its possible appearance remains a drawing by the artist’s brother, architect Sergei Ivanov, “Portico of the Doric Temple” (1857−1858, State Tretyakov Gallery), which is probably a facade project. Ivanov’s compositions were conceived as independent planes in a conventional space, unrelated to specific architectural forms.
